As they neared her hideout everything seemed amplified to her. Her breathing seemed too loud, her pulse raced too fast, and she swore they’d find her.

“Check the exits,” the one in charge said. “No witnesses. We’re sending a message.”

An extremely muscular man nodded and she felt fear pour over her as she began to panic. She knew what that meant, they’d be checking the staircase shortly. Her fight or flight kicked in and she knew she had to get the fuck out of there. It didn’t matter where, as long as it was not here with these men that would kill her if they found her just like they’d killed that poor man. But she knew she couldn’t run down the stairs. What if he knew the ins and outs of this place? Familiarity would beat quickness, he’d be on her in an instance and she’d be dead. She refused to allow that to be her end, not on her first day of independence. On the day she swore would be the true beginning of her life.

As difficult as it was, she prepared herself for him to open that door, and when he did she stood flat behind it. She stood as close as possible to the edge allowing for a full swing of the metal door. She willed herself to hold her breath as he stood there watching, obviously checking for any movement. The stairway was completely dark each door illuminated by an “Exit” sign. If he moved from his perch, if he went down the stairs or back up, she’d be found out, she knew it.

Her eyes closed and she made a promise to herself that she would not go out like this. She wouldn’t, she swore it, this was not how her life was supposed to end.

“Anything?” One of the flunkeys asked.

“Nah, quiet as a mouse.” Gwen almost melted against the wall when the door began to close, but she held herself still, listening, making sure she was in the clear.

“The elevator?” The one who seemed to be the second in command asked.

“Fine, it’s loud as hell, no one’s touched it.”

“Alright let’s go.” She watched as the “boss” strode in front of them as if he held the entire world in his hands and with one flick of a finger could crush anyone he pleased.

“Think anyone will call the cops?”

“Nah, you know how they are. Cops don’t fuck with black neighborhoods,” Mr. Second in Command responded.

The boss smirked and it sent a dreadful shiver down Gwen’s spine turning her blood ice cold, “And if they did, we’d take care of them. This is Matherio turf and I don’t let anyone touch what’s mine.”

She waited in her hiding place for at least ten minutes after she heard the elevator screech. Rusted coils tightening and expanding through years of neglect. It surprised her that they reached the lobby safely. That they had been allowed to live another moment, just fine, without a care in the world when they had taken someone’s life and would have taken her’s had she not been careful. At that moment she lost faith in karma, in the promise that cosmic justice existed to punish those who wronged others.

She counted, stood quietly straining to listen for the sound of a car starting. In the distance, she heard it, booming music bass so loud that even from here it hurt her ears. As the harsh noise faded away she ran from the stairway, but the body, that body, it stopped her. She couldn’t be like them, leaving him there so carelessly.

She knocked on every door, screamed, yelled for people to answer. People who she knew was there. But no one ever came. No one ever opened the door, no one ever turned on a light, no one ever attempted to help her. She knew then that the people were afraid. The sing-song phrase came to her mind “Snitches get stitches” and she realized then that these people lived by that motto. At the end of the day, their fear won over their humanity, and with a defeated sigh she gave one more glance to the corpse that lay on the floor before running for her own life.

She ran back towards town, spotted a 24-hour gas station, and begged the cashier to use their phone. She spoke a mile a minute, words blurring and spilling out of her from exhaustion and shock. He gave her his cell phone and when she reached the police operator she nearly collapsed from joy. She told them everything, what she had seen, the body, what he looked like, how many men their were, what they’d said, but when she told the woman the address she felt a shift in her tone. Subtle, but something in her tensed and became dry. She promised to send someone to the scene and Gwen waited, eyes glued to the door.

She waited for two hours, and she never saw a single police car pass by.

Like this:

Gwen had visited too many stores in the hope of finding a job. While she had been surprised that quite a few were, indeed hiring, and had eagerly given her an application, she was well aware that her chances were slim. She’d lied on each and every one of them, listing her residence at the shelter and giving them their phone number, even though she no longer resided there. Not having experience would be hard enough, but not having a way to contact her? That would be a guaranteed no when it came to her file. Her feet were sore as she sat down at their local mall’s cafeteria. The scents of pizza, pretzels, cinnamon buns, and cookies made her groan. It hadn’t even dawned on her that she’d forgotten something her body clearly needed, food. That explained her dizziness and her growing irritation.

Her eyes glanced towards the main entrance and through the glass panels she realized, the night was quickly beginning to fall. She’d need to head out now if she’d have any possibility of finding a homeless shelter, or else she’d have to sleep on the street. If there was any indication from the breeze this morning, that option was out the window. It would be too cold for her out there. She needed to find somewhere warm, or else she’d be in danger of suffering a serious case of hypothermia.

Hours later she still hadn’t had any luck, and now her body protested going another step without substance. She half thought about praying to some deity to help her along her way but remembered it had failed her so far, and she wasn’t about to let it kick her when she was already down.

The one homeless person she’d found had yelled at her, “Stay the hell away from my cart!” Gwen tried to explain that all she wanted was directions, or to know if the woman had any idea where the nearest homeless shelter was, or even at this point, the nearest soup kitchen. But when the lady tried to beat her away with, what was most likely, someone’s stolen purse, Gwen backed off.

She stumbled around another corner, taking shelter from the chilling breeze in between two buildings. She hugged herself tighter, rubbing her arms in an attempt to stay warm. Her stomach grumbled at her again, and she winced as another hunger pain started. Checking her surroundings she grimaced at the dumpster. Gwen didn’t want to go near it, didn’t even want to admit what she was thinking, but between dumpster diving and dying of starvation, well, the choice was easy. A half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich, five bags full of chip crumbs, and a cup full of watered down ice later, she felt a little better. She even managed to find a couple of packets of broken poptarts that were still good; they’d be breakfast for the next couple of days.

With one need taken care of, she felt more focused on the other. She was getting into a bad part of town now, and it was too late to turn back, but she needed to get off the street and fast. She had a backpack and was walking by herself alone, even though she hated to admit it she knew she’d be an easy target.

Just then her savior appeared. A man getting out of a taxi, walking up a short pair of steps he fiddled with a key before opening the door to a set of apartments. Gwen caught the door with her foot behind him and walked in confidently like she had every right to be there. She glanced left and right and cursed at the lobby. She couldn’t sleep here. There was nowhere for her to hide in the small space, she’d need to go up. Maybe she could set up camp in a vacant hallway for a few hours then leave before anyone noticed.

“Going up?” He asked.

“Huh? Oh, yes, sorry,” she responded with the warmest smile she could.

He gave her a strange look. Her body tensed, fear hit her at the thought that she’d been found out. That he instantaneously knew she didn’t live here and would call the cops to remove her. “I lost my keys around here somewhere, or at least I thought I did. I’m such a clutz.”

He considered her again before answering her with a slight shrug, “happens to the best of us.” He held the elevator open for her and she stepped inside. Noticing the buttons were on his side she asked in her cheeriest voice, “four please.”

He hit two, then four and she sighed inside. Tension releasing from her body until he asked, “So, you lost your keys, huh?”

“Yeah,” she replied nervously adjusting the strap of her backpack.

“How are you getting into your apartment then?”

“A friend has a spare. She should be here shortly.”

“Oh, okay-” the elevator dinged on two and he stepped out but turned around to face her for a moment, “I’m in 2B, name’s Daniel. If you need anything let me know.”

“Thank you so much, but I should be fine.” She nodded displaying another smile, “nice meeting you, Daniel.”

“You too.”

With that, he was off and she was free, for now at least.

She prowled the fourth floor, and the third before giving up with a sigh. Each floor was jam-packed with doors. She turned to head back towards the elevator curious if there was another floor, vacant apartment maybe? But then her eyes met the stairwell and she smiled. It was dark and warm, and that made it perfect. She sat down in a corner, securing her backpack behind her for when she would need to make a quick escape and closed her eyes.

The loud bang frightened her awake. What time was it? She must have only been asleep for an hour, maybe two? But then she heard it again, realizing the stairway amplified the sound into a reverberating echo. Curiosity got the better of her. She opened the door and peaked out in time to see five men. They were all dressed in black, leather jackets, stern faces. They looked mean, cold, ruthless. It was time for her to leave, she realized, she was in danger.

But then her gaze fixed behind them, at the open door of one of the apartments, and the lifeless body of a young man who laid in his own blood. Awareness hit her and knocked the wind out of her body. He was dead, these men most likely killed him, and that made her a witness to a murder.

Like this:

Gwen was a product of the broken system of society. That’s what she’d always thought during her youth. That her decisions, while her own, were due to a lack of parenting, her lack of stability.

Her mother had abandoned her when she was a baby. She’d left her at the hospital and never returned. If that wasn’t enough, she’d also kindly left off her father’s name on her birth certificate. Gwen would never know who she belonged to. Who, if anyone, wanted her.

That put Gwen in the system. She’d bounced around from foster home to foster home. In the five times, she’d been adopted, she’d never been out of a shelter for more than a year. Rejection had become the term that Gwen’s life had revolved around. That had become her stability.

During that time in her life, she never tried to find her parents. She couldn’t have given a single fuck about them, because they hadn’t given one for her. While each shelter had always been kind to her, Gwen couldn’t stand the look of disappointment on their faces everytime she came back. She couldn’t deal with their pity when she celebrated another birthday without a true place to call home.

She didn’t even have any friends. The only person she had gotten close to, Brandon, a scrawny black kid with a heart of gold filled with more emotion then her’s had ever been, cried when he’d heard the news that he was getting adopted and would have to leave her. He actually begged his parents to take her too, and they’d considered.

That was when she knew he’d found a good family, and she couldn’t mess that up for him. There had never been a single question of if she should or shouldn’t go. Being alone, would be better torture, then knowing she had ruined his chance at love and happiness. A chance that he deserved more than anyone else she knew. So when they tried to meet her, she hid, every time, until eventually, they got the hint and stopped trying.

She never forgot him though. To pay him some sort of homage she made it her mission to get into music. She continued to play with their silly cardboard guitar, took the damn thing everywhere with her. Littered with countless dents and holes, it had threatened to fall apart. So, in response, she’d stolen three rolls of gorilla duck tape and taped the shit out of it. It was the one thing she fought over, the one thing she swore to never let go.

At the school library, she researched how to read sheet music. She made notes on all the different kinds of chords including sharps and flats. She joined band class for the sole purpose of getting her hands on the real instrument. Man, when that happened, she’d thought she’d finally reached heaven.

She was horrible at it, absolutely terrible. Their band teacher took pity on her, said he saw her drive or some sort of bullshit, and he taught her. She got better, sounding less like a dying bird, and more like an amateur. But as soon as it began, it ended. Before she knew it, they were handing her a diploma and sending her on her way. A few months later she turned eighteen and had to say goodbye to the closest thing she’d had to home.

She couldn’t face their tears or listen to their good wishes. She’d been born with a hardened heart, and she’d need it to get through this tough, wicked world. So she left with a rare smile on her rosy lips. She refused to let tears drop from her bright green eyes. Her shoulders squared, her chin tilted up, and she approached the world with all the confidence she could muster. That was the last image they had of her.

But soon the wind turned cold in Ohio. It blew through her fire engine tendrils and whispered to her that she was a fool. That in this world she’d be eaten alive by the vultures around every corner. Her bravado faded slightly, and she realized for the first time that she had nowhere to go. Nothing to her name except for the few belongings in her black backpack. No money, no home, no family, no friends, and no idea of future. She’d need to figure it out fast, or else, she wouldn’t be able to survive tomorrow.

Like this:

I’ve been having a tough couple of days and it affected my playing habits. So I opened up my gameplay save with Gwen and Holden. Gwen, who is an adult now and in the prime stages of mid-life crisis, decided she wanted to move out of that beautiful house I bought her. Now they live somewhere else that needed, well, a lot of interior design help and alas, here are the results of the first room.

I took inspiration from this picture.

And believe it or not, I didn’t edit these. I’m using Reshade 4.0 and I made my own preset which I’m really loving right now.